RECIPE: Pickled Naga Chilli & Caramalised Onion Sauce

On May 24, 2014 by Tim Newman

So, today I attempted to clear up one of the biggest ongoing dilemmas in my life: what to do with a butt load of last season’s inedibly hot pickled naga chillies? The answer came to me in a flash, why not make an inedibly hot naga chilli sauce. So I did, and here’s how.

It’s really, really hot. So if you want to use any other kind of pickled chilli instead of naga you’d probably be doing the right thing…

Ingredients

These ingredients will make you absolutely loads of the stuff:

However many chillis you want to use (I used 6 and regretted it)
A bunch of onions
Couple of those sweet red pointed peppers (normal bell peppers will do though)
3 x bell peppers
1 can of chopped tomatoes
1 tiny can of tomato puree
Bag of cherry tomatoes
Salt & Pepper (obvs)

Caramelise The Onions

I used about six onions but that doesn’t mean anything because they’re all different sizes aren’t they. These were somewhere between small and medium-sized. Any how they made this much onion when they were chopped. I’ve put a medium-sized lemon in the frame for reference. NB: the lemon is not used in this recipe.

There are a lot of ways to caramelise onions according to the internet. I got pretty confused so I opted for the easiest way.

Chop up your onions and then fry them in oil on a really, really low heat for about half an hour (or more if you can be arsed). About half way through the process when they look like they are on the turn, put in about three tablespoons of the vinegar from the pickled chilli jar and a tea-spoon of salt and some pepper.

Chopping

Whilst the onions were getting busy in the pan I chopped up the nagas. Safety first here. I’ve been burned before, it felt like I had chilblains for about three hours all over my hands. If you can’t find any gloves that will fit your sausage fingers there’s always a solution:

So, chop the chillis and the peppers into small bits and pop them in a bowl. I used this many baby tomatoes. In retrospect I wished I’d bought big tomatoes because they’re easier to chop. I’m still learning. So this is how many of the little blighters I used:

Mix

Once you’ve chopped all your goodies up and the onions are ready, just add all the ingredients together into a big pan with another half a cup of vinegar from the chilli pot, three small glasses of water and some more salt and pepper.

Bring it to the boil briefly and then let it simmer for an hour or two (or three).

Once it’s cooled down get to work on it with a blender until it’s at the consistency you desire and put it into jars.

Using The Beast

Use with caution because it’s hotter than the Kalahari Desert. Burgers is a good option though. I frikkin’ love burgers.

If you want something less aggro try this: FRUITY CHILLI SAUCE and if you don’t want anything to do with actually eating spicy food yourself, here’s a VIDEO OF GORDON RAMSAY WATCHING A WOMAN RUB CHILLIS INTO HER EYES.